Saturday, April 16, 2011

What a story! I love this world where vampires and magic are public knowledge and, while that certainly isn’t a new idea, it is certainly grittier and more realistic than other book worlds. Golden uses a third person narrator that follows one person around in each chapter. So while the narrator isn’t omniscient, you still get inside many people’s heads and actually care for them as they watch the people they love fall prey to the insanity that has awoken in this town. This is the 5th book following Peter Octavian but the first one I have read. While I can appreciate that many of these characters have backstory that I am unaware of, it doesn’t really matter for enjoying this book. In this novel Peter is brought to the town of Hawthorne by Keomany to stop a chaos storm from spreading. Something has awoken in Hawthorne and it is up to Peter and Keomany to stop it.

Waking Nighmares is an apt name for this book! The things that go bump in the night and that keep you under the covers shaking in fear are walking around for all to see. Golden gets you to know and then root for the people in this chaotic hell on earth. It is creepy and scary and not a book I would read while soaking in the tub. It is also a little difficult at night as I began to imagine what might be staring at me through the windows from the dark outside. A character mentions that their mother used to tell him when he was little that, there is nothing in the dark that isn’t also there when you turn on the light, and he wonders if his mother had lied to him. Scary!! There are a lot of creepy crawlies in this book, eating souls and wreaking havoc and seemingly unstoppable. Not to ruin it for you, but the world doesn't come to an end in this novel and a semblance of order is restored, but not without a lot of change and loss.

All in all a great read and I look forward to reading the other Peter Octavian novels.

2011 Reading Challenge

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About Me

I love to read! Ever since my first Nancy Drew I escape into worlds created by the clever minds who learned how to put their thoughts on paper and actually get paid for it. I like all sorts of books, though I tend to go through a lot of urban fantasy, fantasy and science fiction.